


The Wild One

by Raccoonfg



Series: Four Nights of Frights [4]
Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Camping, Gen, Horror, ghost story, woods
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-08-11 00:29:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16465232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raccoonfg/pseuds/Raccoonfg
Summary: Go deep in the forest, if you dare, to the lonely cabin; The Wild One's lair.





	The Wild One

“Hurry up, you big baby!”

“I’m not a baby!”

“Haha! Kyle’s a great big bay~bee!”

It wasn’t his fault that he had trouble keeping up with the others. Kyle was, after all, a koala and his short legs didn’t exactly make him a champion sprinter, let alone someone who easily kept pace with faster mammals.

But that was just how it was for him; trying his best and getting the short end of the stick. Whether it was getting picked last in gym or going on camping trips like this and getting blamed by all the other Junior Ranger Scouts for making the nature hikes take too long.

All he wanted was to be accepted. That’s why he joined the scouts in the first place and why he was stumbling through the forest on this evening; to make friends.

Only now, he wasn’t exactly sure any of this was such a great idea.

“Come oo~on,” groaned Paulie, the fawn who was leading this small group of four.

“Woulda been there ages ago if it wasn’t for him,” muttered Dale, a rabbit who frowned at Kyle as he passed by Paulie. “Shoulda left him behind.”

“Pfft,” snorted Greg, a badger who lackadaisically skipped between the tree roots that snaked across the mossy ground. “He’s only dragging his heels cuz he’s scared. ‘Sides, he woulda blabbed if we didn’t bring him.”

“I wouldn’t blab,” Kyle protested. “A-an’ I’m not scared!”

Greg rolled his eyes and delivered a mocking, “Suu~uure”, over his shoulder.

He really wasn’t. It was only the woods. At night. With no adults. Or flashlights. Nothing to be afraid of. Not even the occasional hooting of owls that coincidentally made him flinch.

Honest.

“A-are we almost there yet?” Kyle glanced up at the autumn-molted branches, keeping a lookout for any more wide-eyed watchers in the trees. Satisfied that he couldn’t spot anything else lurking above, he scampered as quick as he could, barely catching up behind Paulie. “Where are we going anyway?”

“You’ll find out when we get there,” Paulie replied, not even bothering to look back at him.

“Yeah, but--”

“But what?” Paulie immediately stopped and turned, nearly causing Kyle to run head-first into him. “If it’s that big a deal, maybe you shoulda asked that before begging to tag along.”

Awkwardly, Kyle averted his eyes from Paulie’s withering glare, scuffing his shoes while muttering, “I didn’t beg…”

“Hey,” called Dale, “I think it’s down from here.”

The young rabbit stood on an incline up ahead, rummaging his paws through the brush before disappearing into the thick of brambles and twigs. The others stayed where they were and watched apprehensively as the bushes gradually went still.

“Yeah, yeah,” he cried from beyond the shrubbery, “it’s here!”

“Come on.” Paulie gave a curt jerk of his head towards the low hill and stalked off to join the others, with Kyle reluctantly trailing behind him.

Koalas were meant to climb trees, not through them, and Kyle found the whole experience to be both frustrating and painful, with every little thing snagging on his uniform or scratching at his hide.

By the time he finally emerged from the bushes, he immediately bent over his knees with exhaustion and panted at the ground.

“Heads up, baby,” quipped Greg. “We didn’t come out here to hunt for night crawlers.”

Catching his breath, Kyle tilted his head up and peered down the hill towards the clearing at the bottom.

Standing there was a lone cabin.

Its decrepit frame loomed ominously in the center of the shadowy field; with a crumbling chimney towering over its ramshackle roof and a warped, misshapen wooden deck that sagged and tilted into the earth like a slacked jaw.

No paths seemed to lead to it; almost like this place was completely forgotten and given up to the mercy of the woods, which eagerly reclaimed almost every inch of its yard with wild overgrowth.

All except for a short, rounded structure made of bricks that stood a few paces away from the porch. No shrubs, weeds or vines touched it, leaving a ring of barren dirt around its base.

Kyle wasn’t sure what to make of it. At its height, it looked like a fire-pit, but the top of it was covered by wooden planks that appeared to be bolted into the bricks, making it a bit too inconvenient for lighting an open fire.

“Oh man,” Greg whistled, “it’s creepier than I imagined.”

“It’s not that creepy,” Dale retorted.

Taking a few steps down the hill ahead of them, Kyle could only ask “What is it?”

Slowly, Paulie followed after him. “You ever hear the story of The Wild One?”

“It’s his first year, right?” Greg piped up from behind. “I doubt he has.”

Greg snickered. “Ooo, it’s a good one…”

As he briefly paused to turn and listen, the others calmly passed around him, again leaving Kyle to tag along.

“The cabin our pack has been using? They built it something like ten years ago,” Paulie explained. “This was the original one that the Junior Ranger Scouts used on their hiking trips.”

“So why’d they build a new one?”

“Shhh!” Dale and Greg turned and hushed him in unison.

“Dunno how long it was before the second one was built,” he continued. “Maybe five years? Maybe longer? The pack leaders never want to say, but it was long before we were born.”

Reaching the bottom of the hill, Paulie turned to Kyle and motioned his muzzle towards the covered circle of bricks.

“There was an accident. Over there, in the well.”

“It’s a well?” Kyle asked breathlessly while squinting at the structure.

“Used to be. Top half has all crumbled away and the park rangers covered it up to keep people from falling in, but-- Huh.”

Inquisitively, Paulie approached the well and gripped one of the planks with his hooves, pulling it away almost effortlessly as the soft lumber split apart, exposing its rot.

“Just don’t make them like they used to,” Greg sniggered as he joined Paulie and yanked off a second plank.

“Anyway,” Paulie shrugged and stooped down to pick up a rock, tossing it back and forth between his hooves as he continued. “The year it happened, the pack had a new member joining them. One who didn’t exactly fit in.”

“A fox,” Greg interjected with a toothy sneer; earning him a quick glare from Paulie. “S-sorry…”

“Right,” grumbled the fawn. “So yeah, a fox. And you know how it is with them.”

“Not really…” Kyle replied.

Still absently tossing the rock from hoof to hoof, Paulie began to slowly walk around the well. “They’re crafty… And sneaky… And untrustworthy…”

“No good for a pack,” Dale grunted from beside Kyle.

“So the first time he showed up to a meeting, the other scouts got together before the pack leaders arrived and taught him a lesson to keep him in line. Supposedly it scared him away from the rest of the meeting. But you know what?”

“What?”

“The next week, he came back. Acted like it never happened.”

“Some stones on that guy,” Greg chuckled.

“The other kids figured it was an act. Be all buddy-buddy with them - forgive and forget - and then get his payback when the time was right. So that’s when they decided to beat him at his own game.”

“What’d they do?”

“A few weeks later was the big autumn hiking trip. Just like this one. They had spent some time pretending to warm up to him and invited the fox to join in on a game of hide and seek while the pack leaders were preparing dinner inside the cabin.”

Off in the distance, some bird of prey gave a shrill cry, causing Kyle to flinch in surprise. Paulie took notice and smirked to himself as he slowed his pace around the well.

“They said he was ‘it’, since he was new. And he’d have to count to ten with his eyes covered while leaning against the old well. So he did what they asked, pressed his head to the well, covered his eyes, and started counting.”

Grinning, Greg leaned over Kyle’s shoulder. “One… Two…”

“Except, the other scouts didn’t run off to hide.”

“Three… Four…” Dale joined in.

“They snuck up on him, real quiet like.”

“Five… Six…”

No longer circling the well, Paulie glanced over its meager wall, still tossing the rock back and forth.

“And they waited for just the right moment.”

“Seven… Eight…”

Catching the rock one last time, Paulie reached out his arm and perilously dangled it over the mouth of the well.

“Nine…”

“And on the count of ten, they all pushed him up, over, and into the well.”

The rock slipped from his grasp and tumbled into the dark void of the well while everyone listened closely to hear it splash. But all they got was a few echoed reports of stone crashing against stone, followed by the unsettling silence of nothing.

“Musta dried up,” Dale observed disappointedly.

Kyle, however, was far more concerned about the story.

“They just threw him in?”

“Pushed,” Paulie corrected. “And they didn’t mean much by it. Let him splash around in there and pull him back up with the bucket once they had their fill. That’s all.”

“That’s all?”

Faking a sombre face, Paulie softly shook his head and walked over to Kyle; putting his arm around the koala’s shoulders.

“Things get a little hazy in the details,” he explained as he led Kyle over to the well. “Some say that they waited a little too long, listening to him cry and panic, and he eventually lost his strength. Others claim that he hit his head on a loose brick on the way down. But either way, by the time they realized things went too far, he was floating face-first in the water.”

Feeling somewhat safe in the tepid embrace of the fawn, Kyle leaned over the edge to take a brief, yet cautious peek down into the abyss.

“The rest of the trip got cancelled, of course. As well as next year’s. It wasn’t until two years later that they finally returned for the annual autumn hike, figuring that the worst was behind them. They were wrong.

“One night, while everyone else was asleep, a scout had gone missing.

“The park rangers put out a search, but nothing was ever found. They guessed he got home-sick, ran away, and got lost or kitnapped. Some of the pack leaders took the heat and resigned, but the guys who replaced them didn’t see any reason to cancel next autumn’s hike.”

Slightly turning to look over at his fellow scout, Paulie’s lips peeled back into a wicked grin.

“You wanna guess what happened?”

Timidly, Kyle gave a slow shake of his head.

“The next year, one more disappeared. And the year after that? Another one. After the third scout had vanished, the park authorities said the cabin grounds were unsafe and closed it all down; banning all visitors from trespassing.”

“I heard it was so bad that everybody stopped coming altogether,” said Greg.

Dale added, “I heard it was so bad that even the chief forest ranger had to quit.”

“Eventually the new cabin was built, the autumn hikes resumed again, and all the other campers returned, thinking it was in the past. But every so often, there’d be rumors about missing children who were last seen being led away into the woods by a little fox. A ghost that they called The Wild One.”

Seeing the silent, wide-eyed look on Kyle’s face, Paulie craned further over the well’s edge; subtly urging the koala to do the same with a gentle push on his shoulder. 

“And some say that if you visit this place on a cold, dark autumn night like tonight and listen closely - real closely - you can hear him crying from the bottom of the well.”

Drawn into the endless depth of the well’s barren pit, Paulie’s voice was little more than a whisper on the wind to Kyle’s ear as he stared deeper and deeper into nothingness.

The whistling breeze flowed through the open gap and swirled down into the bone-dry shaft, creating a forlorn whirlpool that pulled his thoughts further away from the surface and into the blackest point of the hollow.

And in that inky, formless absence - through the haunting song of the wind - he could almost hear something.

Just faintly.

Reverberating weakly from below in a gentle call, it lightly caressed his ears; blurring the line between truth and imagination. 

The sound of crying.

“Eeeeyyyuuaaahh!!”

An unexpected shove from behind sent Kyle leaping straight up in the air with a wild yelp. And as he landed gracelessly on his behind, the clearing erupted in laughter.

“Haha, got ‘em!”

“The look on his face!”

Greg was doubled over, slapping his knee as he cackled, “O~oh man, it was so worth bringing him along.”

“Guess he’s good for something,” Dale snickered.

With his hooves on his hips, Paulie smugly looked between his two friends. “And you guys said that babies are no fun…”

Sitting there in the dirt, Kyle looked up at the three of them, feeling an uncomfortable sting in someplace other than his backside.

Kyle pinched his mouth tightly shut, holding back the tears of a wounded pride as he struggled to pull himself to his feet. He had half-hoped that maybe - just maybe - he’d see one of the guys offering a paw or hoof to help him up. Perhaps a good-natured pat on the back. A congratulation for being a good sport. Something.

But all they did was turn and walk away; still laughing.

It wasn’t fair.

All he wanted to do was make some friends - to find someplace he could belong.

Instead, he only found himself at the tail end of a bad joke.

“Hey,” Greg turned around, flashing one of his smiles that Kyle was quickly growing too loathe, “you coming, or are you gonna sit there making mud pies all night?”

Frowning as he finally pushed himself back up into a tottering stance, Kyle sulkily asked, “Coming where?”

Paulie stopped by the cabin’s dilapidated porch and snatched an old branch up from the ground.

“Where do you think?” He then broke it in half over his knee and handed a piece to Dale. “We didn’t just come out here to see if you can scream like a girl.”

“Coulda done that back at the other cabin,” Dale added; snapping stray twigs off of his branch.

Stooping down to collect an armful of rocks, Greg explained, “We gotta leave our mark while we’re here. Find what ain’t broke and then break it.”

“You’re… Going inside?”

As strange and out of place as it seemed when he first saw it from a distance, Kyle couldn’t really appreciate how truly foreboding the cabin looked until he was standing this close. The deformed façade rose up over them like a monument of decayed wood and glared down at its trespassers with dirty, broken eyes of jagged glass. With each step that the three troublesome boys took on its slumped deck, the cabin groaned profusely.

But Paulie only ignored the building’s moaning protests as he prodded at the padlock bolted to the entrance.

“I-I really don’t think we should--”

He didn’t have much patience for Kyle’s moaning either, and quickly cut off his objections with a swift kick to the door.

The rattling thud of his hoof connecting with the entrance boomed throughout the quiet autumn night; soon followed by two more hammering blows of thunder. Again and again, the doorway shuddered noisily under his assault while the others stood by and watched.

Blow by blow, it was like he was a creature possessed; determined beyond all reason to be allowed inside.

And in time, with a shrill crack, the wood finally splintered away from the lock, setting the door free to swing wide open.

The cool rushing wind immediately filled the cabin like a bellows and flowed back out the windows and chimney, emanating a pained, shrieking whistle that set every hair on Kyle’s body standing on end.

“Well?” Ushering in Greg and Dale, Paulie turned back to Kyle with an irritably impatient look on his face. “Are you coming or not?”

Trembling, Kyle stood his ground at the base of the porch steps with his paws at his sides, balled up into fists. He was afraid - of what was inside - of being made a fool again - of everything.

But most of all, he was afraid of confronting Paulie. So all he did was stand there, pouting in petulant silence.

“Pfft, whatever.” And with a roll of his eyes, the fawn skulked off into the dark cabin, slamming the door behind him; leaving the timid koala alone in the woods.

All by himself, Kyle’s stoic front started to erode. It began with a quiver in his lips, followed by a sniffle in his nose. A lump welled up in his throat and his vision grew moist and blurry. And at the moment that he heard the crash of broken glass, followed by a burst of raucous laughter, he knew that they were finally done with him.

It was okay to cry.

Sobbing as he turned to walk away, Kyle rubbed his fists against his face in a futile attempt to keep his fur dry. He barely knew the way back, but that didn’t matter now. He only wanted to get as far away as possible from his so-called ‘pack’ and leave them to their vandalism and cruelties.

The noises of destructive jubilation carried on while he hobbled off; teasing him with the fun he was missing - mocking him for not fitting in. It was a mistake coming out here. He really didn’t belong. Not since he had to move to Zootopia.

“N-nuts to t-them,” he muttered gloomily.

He missed Outback Island.

He missed his old friends.

But most of all, he missed his--

Barely past the deteriorated well, he stopped.

Something felt wrong.

The trees were no longer rustling and the wind had gone silent.

It was as if the entire forest stood still.

And most concerning of all, not a single peep came from the cabin behind him.

Slowly, he turned around and looked back at the old building, hoping to hear something come from within; a creak, bang, giggle or even a cough. Anything.

But the cabin gave up nothing. It only sat there, quiet as a grave.

Fearing the worst, Kyle carefully crept towards the porch steps, still listening for some sign that they were okay. The cabin was, after all, practically falling apart at the seams; they could have had an accident and needed help.

But on the other paw, they could be trying to trick him again.

Stopping no further than where he stood when he last looked at Paulie, Kyle nervously gazed up at the cabin, which hovered menacingly over him. Balling his fists again, he started to move his mouth; trying to find the strength to speak. His lips and jaw motioned wordlessly for what felt like hours before his lungs finally spared a gust of air to carry his voice.

“Guh… Guys..?”

Suddenly the front door flew open with a loud crash and Greg came stumbling out. Bracing himself against the fractured door-frame, he panted heavily while gaping down at Kyle with wide, bulging eyes.

“It’s…” he gasped; struggling to speak between ragged breaths. “It’s re--”

And then out of nowhere, Greg was violently yanked back into the shadows by some unseen force that tore him away from the entrance like a rag-doll, barely allowing the badger to even utter a single yelp.

Petrified and confused, Kyle was frozen in place with his mouth hanging open. If this was a joke, it was far too convincing to be funny.

Standing there, useless, his mind was at a loss for what to do next. Run away? Run inside? Call the others? Call for help? The flood of decisions bombarded him like the roaring static of an untuned radio; overwhelming his thoughts with a deafening white noise. He was drowning ever deeper into his panicked confusion, sinking further and further until something finally cut through the disarray, bringing him back to his senses.

It was an echo. A slow, methodical series of footsteps that heavily reverberated from within the cabin. And it was coming towards Kyle.

The choice was clear now.

He had to run.

Without stopping to see what was heading his way, he immediately scrambled on his feet and tore off back towards the bramble crested hill from where they had come from. He ran so fast that his ears were filled with the wheezing of his breath and the beating of his heart. The direction ahead of him bobbed and blurred wildly as he dashed forward with reckless abandon, making it difficult to focus on anything other than the far horizon. And it was because of this that he didn’t notice the unearthed root until the moment that his foot was caught under it, sending him falling face-first onto the ground.

The aching burn of scraped limbs shot through his body, but he was far too terrified to give himself the time to scream and curse. Just as soon as he landed, he clambered up onto his hands and feet, and haphazardly surged forward in a sort of half-crawl; lacking the strength or wits to pull himself back up to his full height.

The ground whizzed past his view as he continued forward, with clumps of weeds and scattered stones zipping beneath him on the cool damp grass. The wet turf soon faded away into dry, dusty earth and a peppering of pebbles uncomfortably stabbed at his paw pads, but he still pressed on, ignoring the discomfort until he once again made the same mistake as before.

“Aaaatch!”

With a jolt of pain, the short wall of bricks collided with the top of his skull, derailing his entire escape. Practically recoiling off the side of the well, Kyle clutched at his head as he tumbled over onto his back and rocked from side to side while he suffered the hot and cold throbbing of his scalp. Dazed and stunned, he could hardly sit up, let alone jump to his feet. His chance to run was finished. It was all over now.

As he strained to squint past the spinning haze of his addled eyesight, he could see a dark figure closing in on him. Its pace was unrelenting and dauntless; never slowing down or showing any sign of hesitation.

There was never a hope of escape; he understood this now. All Kyle could do at this point was cover his eyes and cry as The Wild One came to claim its fourth victim of the night.

“P-please don’t h-hurt me…”

“What? I’m not gonna hurt you.”

The voice was nothing like what he would have imagined; it sounded young, gentle, and even friendly. Slowly, he lowered his paws from his face and looked up to see a fox cub standing there in a scout uniform, kindly smiling with an outstretched paw.

“My name’s Nick,” he said. “What’s yours?”

Completely puzzled, Kyle suspiciously glanced at the ghost’s - Nick’s - paw, neither accepting it, nor giving his name.

“Honest,” Nick chuckled innocently; looking completely unfazed by Kyle’s distrust. “I only want to be your friend.”

“But--” Kyle leaned over and gazed past Nick, towards the cabin. “But what about them..?”

The fox peeked over his shoulder for a second and then gave him a sympathetic shake of his head. “What about them?” he asked. “They’re bad kids. I don’t play with them anymore.” A hint of sadness touched his voice and soured his smile for a moment before he perked back up and chirped, “I only want to be friends with good kids. Like you.” 

Still lying there, Kyle again scrutinized Nick’s paw. He seemed sincere enough and there was a sombre sense of understanding too him. Paulie and the others really were bad kids and if the story was true, then Nick knew what it was like to be a victim like him.

He must’ve seen what had happened and gave them a scare to teach them a lesson; that’s all. Kyle could hardly believe that a fox no older than him, ghost or not, could possibly do anything to seriously hurt them.

Right?

“I promise, it’ll be okay.”

Apprehensively, Kyle lifted his paw towards Nick’s; nervously trembling as he brought it close. But as he wrapped his fingers around his palm, he was surprised to find that the ghost’s grasp felt solid and warm to the touch.

This warmth seemed to travel down his arm and filled his body with a sense of calmness that he hadn’t felt in a long time. A sort of nostalgic happiness; like when he was back home and everything was okay. Even the aches and pains of his scraped knees and bruised head faded away into forgotten concerns as Nick effortlessly pulled him up onto his feet.  
Standing upright, he couldn’t help but smile. The woods didn’t seem so scary anymore and he no longer felt unwanted or unaccepted.

After all, he now had a friend by his side.

“My name’s Kyle.”

Beaming, Nick tugged his arm and led him off towards the trees, laughing as they ran. Kyle felt weightless; practically bouncing on thin air as he trailed behind him - like he was in a dream.

“Where are we going?” he asked, giggling.

Nick pointed towards the thick of the forest with his free paw and said, “To meet the others. They’ll want to be your friends too.”

And off in the distance, Kyle saw several small figures emerge from behind the trees.

“They’re good kids who love to play, just like you.”

There were about a dozen of them; all children of different sizes and species. Some were dressed as scouts, while others wore plain clothes.

Nick turned around and clasped his other paw over Kyle’s; holding him in a dual embrace as he skipped backwards, wearing a broad smile.

“I promise, you’ll never be alone again.”

The children were all pale and white, each smiling the same wide, fixed smile.

And in the darkness, their eyes shone brightly like silver dollars.


End file.
